Gerry Who Says Don't Vote For Me Wins A Seat !

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Well its been done ! A man who is a clearly a principled critic of the Birmingham Local Involvement Network (LINK) a health monitoring body and who said " Do not vote for me " has been elected into one of the 7 Core Group seats . (SEE SOURCE )

UserWatch has been contacted by several members of parts of the the astonished Birmingham Public who mostly were laughing about this ... One of them said :

"This strange LINK body which seems to be half filled with genuine health monitors and half filled with some ego chameleons has yet put on another mysterious display which bedazzles - but this man Gerry made sense in being really critical of how money has been wasted and some of us hope he creates a serious check on stopping the empty ego-antics of some posers and helps to aid more real health monitoring in Birmingham "

From papers we had sent to us Gerry's election address to those who appeared eligible to vote, strangely not everyone in Birmingham , stated :

"£82,249 wasted on research ? £52 ,000 on radio adverts ? Why ?

LINK members should question accountability and responsibility for our money , stop expenditure on expensive lunches , laptops and employing personal assistants for any Core Group member . Who controls the LINK , where is the accountability , investigations into LINK workings not published , good staff gone , a bitter tasted left ? Do not vote for me ."


Go go go Gerrrrryyyy ......

It seems from the information reaching us through PCT and other gossip networks that the Bham LINK is conflicted with those who really seem not to know what they are doing and with those that do .

What we are hearing is an effort is being made for reform and we are asking for further information on this from anyone who can send it to us . We are also picking up that "elections" wasted money and efforts when it would have been better to appoint people and train them up and test their capacity for real monitoring through making reports challenging the health and social care systems to account . Wasn't that was LINK was for?

One the best health reporters in Bham named Alison Dayani needs to get into these strange-world "don't vote for me" stories . Where oh where is Alison ? BIRMINGHAM NEEDS HER !

Please report on Birmingham Health Wonderland stories . Alison in Wonderland follow that LINK white rabbit now ..

UW

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Red And Blue Bollox Mental Health Delusions And China Does Not Exist

Oh go on, and Click on the letter - make it bigger

Injure your sensibilities and scream ... After Labour selling everyone out and making them middle class bureaucrats or uni uni uni headucated dreamlings or just imprisoned or inside charity systems of half life and death shelfware and welfare beings we all now join in missing the point of actually needing a realistic modernised respected"working class" that produces for the country on an export led basis .. Where the feck else can money come from .. Cranky banking ?

China does not exist either it fell into fantasy ocean where the rising island of BIIIIG Western Competition suddenly burps into titchronic existence .. God what total bollox ..

And instead of a proper analysis which shows up the stupid selfish class structure dreams in the UK we get : "Whack the unemployed" ....Whack the mentally ill into quick fitness for work by IAPT "Improvement in Access to Therapies" and whack whack whack .

Its sounds like a new fecking species of Tory Sadistic Duck ..

We are off to relieve ourselves - all this is making us want to whack off .. But there again we are UserWhack .. If you cannot beat them - whack off with them ..

UW

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Birmingham LINK - Free and Flawed Elections ?

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Rumours in the UserWatching and LINK-Watching community are circulating that the Birmingham Local Involvement Network is having free and flawed elections .

Free apparently for those who know how to enter them and flawed because if people in Birmingham do not realise how they can vote then they do not get a vote . A few sources contacting UserWatch now claim that only people on a mysterious database behind the scenes can vote ? HUH ?

We asked in pure-street : "WACHA-MEAN ?"

"Ah well (they said) , if you iz on the database of the LINK Host (people that do admin for the LINK) then you getz a vote ..."

So it appears that you people of Birmingham in the main are not on a database and that means you cannot get a vote on who is allegedly wasting money on your behalf .

So how useful are these election processes at the Local Involvement Network of the Birmingham Health Monitoring LINK ? Well it appears they are not useful at all because their reach is critically unsound (hardly any electorate voting ) and it diverts resources from the core duties of Monitoring Health and Social Care on behalf of the Birmingham public .

Who cares ? Does the Health Overview Scrutiny Committee in Birmingham care about processes (elections) that each time waste £3000 pounds to be "checked".

Does Deidre Alden the Chair of that committee care about this ? We guess she does and we hear maybe she is waiting for the moment to administer political chloroform on the worst parts of the LINK's practices.

Lay monitoring has its place on vulnerable groups but fanciful distractions like "elections" are a waste as opposed to training lay people to monitor properly with some of that wasted election money .

UW

At the Going Down Of the LINK In Brum ?

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Its always good to see questions being asked and it appears more are being asked about the Birmingham LINK (Local Involvment Network of Health Monitors) . One candidate in the new "Core Group" elections to be held in February it appears (?) is using the election address statement to put some pretty searching questions - see from documents we have had passed to us :

"£82,249 wasted on research ? £52 ,000 on radio adverts ? Why ?

LINK members should question accountability and responsibility for our money , stop expenditure on expensive lunches , laptops and employing personal assistants for any Core Group member . Who controls the LINK , where is the accountability , investigations into LINK workings not published , good staff gone , a bitter tasted left ? Do not vote for me ."

Now there is a person to vote for !!!

After reading further reports that are lodged with the Birmingham City Council Health Overview Scrutiny Committee on the 15th December we judge the problem lies inside the structure of LINK combined with the way it assumed many inexperienced people might skillfully monitor health .

After looking at all the Birmingham LINK's minutes on the site and alleged "training" we cannot see anything there that resembles training that would have led to services broadly being held to account in a skillful manner. On the other hand we can see several gems of good practice and they appear to have risen out of PPI Forum related practice and good-willed people . Fewer though than Birmingham people should have expected from March 2008 when the PPI fora ended to 2011 .

The diagram structure of the LINK looks cybernetic to us and scared our office dog . One citizen journalist ( from the US) asked if the diagram was of : "BORGINGHAM LINK" ?

"Have they assimilated creativity and dropped it somewhere ? "

And we replied (yeah all of we)

"Don't say that ! We never snigger at your american foul-ups like the sub prime crisis we are all bloody paying for now .. " (hah that taught them )

But here's the diagram of the Brummie hive - WHOOPS sorreeee we mean the "LINK" which may be liked by centipedes in Birmingham that like things with lots of legs

UW

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Will the Birmingham Local Involvement Network become fit for purpose ?

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Cartoon Starring HSJ Mogger

Will the Birmingham Local Involvement Network (Health Watchers)
become fit for purpose and a competent HealthWatcher ?

LINK Watching is a hobby of many in the health field . Some lay monitoring LINK's set up to monitor health (2008) have been disastrous .

The Birmingham LINK has been half limping really , here and there with some despair , and appears though to have been monitoring parts of the local health scene in Birmingham with a certain degree of competence but also it has been flat-lining around too .

Yet rumors have surfaced that it has also been used by some people to network with and so that their own self interests are looked after . Looking at the LINK records on the Birmingham LINK site reveals strengths in some lay monitoring on Kidney Dialysis and engagement with Post Natal depression that was effective . There is some good work in Mental Health with consultations being put under the microscope and challenged - the older age groups appear to be engaged with thoughtfulness .

Yet there appears a lot of dead weight in the structure of the Birmingham LINK and broad evidence of all the groups practicing good monitoring standards does not exist .

Into the beginning of 2011 comes a LINK election for "Core Group" members ... Oh dear - will this be more of the same bureau-link practice that has characterized the way public energy and money has been mis-targeted in parts of the LINKs nationally .

We have viewed one Councillor Sue Anderson's views expressed to Gov't consultation about Adult Social Care and accountability ref the Birmingham LINK on the pages where you can search the council's reports and committee minutes . The Gov't consultation asks in one document (and she answers) :

12. Would you support an assurance role for the local Health Watch in
the production of accounts?

"Yes as part of the overall arrangements. The city Council has well established arrangements for reaching out to the broader citizenship. When the Link was formed there was an optimistic expectation that it would reach out to the wider citizenship and assist in forming citizen jury’s and groups we could engage with on moves to personalisation for example. It has been disappointing to date that the Link has tended to narrowly reflect its own membership and has not reached out. The extent of the role for Health Watch will depend on its ability to reach out to the broader community and become a more representative voice and an enabler of wider consultation. The City Council would welcome and will take a lead role in ensuring Health Watch takes on this broader role so it could be relied on more as a representative body for purposes of assurance and indeed informing service development. "

Certainly viewing all the Birmingham LINK Core Group minutes does not show cross group strategic communication that is competent and fluidly effective ..

So it is with all this baggage that the new candidates joust and who might just oust some of the older structure to make new growth and far wider competent Health and Social Care monitoring in Birmingham exist

UW

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LINKS Get Stabbed Malcolm Rescues By Sheer Wayne-ish Cheek

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Well Old NALM And its NALMITE Kids have smacked the DOH's ass
regarding accidentally putting out messages to underfund Lay Health Monitoring
Local Involvement Networks. Ooo-ee those tricky little accidents ...Tut , Tut ...

Over to NALM's site for the story where Big Malk Wayne rode in :

Or read below

Today (21 January 2011), NALM met with Ian Winter, the Deputy Regional (London) Director, Social Care and Partnerships at the Department of Health, and Sarah Crossland, LINks/Local HealthWatch Policy Manager, Public and Patient Experience and Engagement Department, to discuss the Joint Improvement Partnership (JIP ) report on funding of LINks.

It was agreed that LINk should have been actively engaged in the process of preparing the report for the JIP. It also became clear that the statement that ‘the base funding for a LINk, net of population and needs weighting, has been estimated by the DH to be £80k’, is not based on DH policy. The statement has now been withdrawn.

It was also agreed that it is inappropriate for local authorities to have leverage on the work of LINks (although, of course, they do have leverage on Hosts where there is a contract). Ian Winter has apologised and has withdrawn the document.

A revised document will be produced. The meeting was positive, open and constructive and NALM appreciated the approach.

I shall let you have a copy of the revised document when it is produced. As I understand the position, the DH has funded LINks for 2011-12 at the same level as this year, plus inflation. Therefore, local authorities have freedom to fund your LINk at the same level as this year.

(Statement From Malcolm Alexander)

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And Do Not Forget To Check Your Bowels - Cancer Kills

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Oh God Its The Local Authority JabberWatchy

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Have you seen the JabberyWatchy in your Local Authority Area ?

Contact UserWatch for some PLTT - Post LINK Trauma Therapy


UW

Evidence Showing Hellth Well Being Borg With LINKs

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Toon Courtesy Of The Rivers Clan

UW

National Association For LINks Members Dubious About HealthWatch Shape?

Toon by Silvis Rivers Of The Clan De Rivers

Probably the most interesting thing happening in so called "monitoring" of health (what's left of health monitoring) is what the National Association For Local Involvement Network Members state in their response/report as a Local Authority conflict of interest to the usual DOH sludgey new "HealthWatch" tactics of screwing up public accountability in lay health monitoring terms at the behest of politicians claiming to make things "local" as opposed to "Top-Down".

But the new "localism" is already "Top-Down" because seasoned local authority watchers and bureau-spotters know that the game of the new lay "HealthWatch" control is on, and the new Health and Well Being Boards were already planned by Labour and will be shaped up functionally only slightly differently from Labour ambitions of power control with weakened lay monitor criticism of policy roll-outs because polticians underlyingly hate democracy and prefer elective dictatorship ...

Powerelessness is their trade, and without it their power dwindles - they know it ....


NALM says the following in its report of the proposals to replace Local Involvement Networks with "HealthWatch"

"4. The Independence of Local and National HealthWatch

There is a critical and glaring conflict of interests in local authorities deciding levels of funding for the body responsible for scrutinising their social care services.

Under the present legislation, LINks appear to be accountable to the Secretary of State for Health and have a membership to whom they are also accountable. This arrangement appears to confer a high degree of independence, but in some instances, LINk members have felt their independence compromised by local authorities and by Hosts. Some LINks have reported threats to their funding and actual reductions, where the LINk has resisted pressure to comply with the direction dictated by local authorities or Hosts. The three-way arrangement (LINks, local authority and Host), has not been a great success in some cases, and some LINks members would argue it has been a failure and not in the best interests of the public or the best use of public funds."


UserWatch partly agrees with NALM's insights here . What's now different in local Govt too is the recessionary context - screw the poor and cut more services . Lick ass of the the favoured banker classes telling everyone they need bonuses of billions to secure the "talent" they need for their businesses .. What fucking talent ? Talent for major losses ? Huh ? Fuck off please ..

So you know what to expect - a weakened structure of health monitoring in the new HealthWatch dominated by Local Authorities who will be funding the HealthWatch bodies that monitor their services ....

Ahh what perfect " localism"....

What is the answer ? Don't believe in this crap but find a ledge of independence anywhere you can for a view and notch your Apache arrows and pierce the contradictions ...... Let em bleed .. Because you definitely will .

NALM DOWNLOADABLE REPORT


UW

Is There An Angel Of Lansley ? What Does It Look Like ?

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Oh Yea - To Saint Silvis For The Toon


UW

Local Involvement Network Slave Volunteers Or Pathfinders ? Ask Yourself

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Art By Art De Rivers & Silvis Rivers Dec 2010

The UK Dept of Health put out bulletin on 29th December based on moving the Govt "HealthWatch" policy forwards and woven into it is a 2008 - 9 UK wide Local Involvement Networks report that shows in some parts of the UK "LINks" as it called (lay monitoring and public and patient health engagements) supported by a DOH grant to Local Authorities did kind of , half-okay.

The great missing equation 1997 - 2010 in Labour's regime in health from the mental health UserWatch position was legal and equal rights to Patient Choice hidden away even as it now inside the strangulation of "secondary care regulations" that basically bars mental health patient choices whilst the DOH was busy making sure with the likes of the (Sainsbury's) Centre For Mental Health "stabilised" psychotics were given "choices" through the Direct Payment methods of eligibility for part service choice techniques, that dot Local Authority (LA) Social Care Services here and there in the UK, uneasily waiting for the recession promoted news of possible eligibility re-bandings.......

Seasoned UserWatchers in mental health, knew this LA Social Care "DP" Direct Payment method was not "real" Patient Choice in mental health but a skewered slimmed down rationed version of it that bought of a few well deserving Users, but rejected the rest as "Socially Include-able" and readied them up for the UK cannibal welfare stews because the unproductive classes in the UK cannot sell anything abroad very well and need to trade of the bones of any part of the welfare classes . Maybe you have not noticed. China has, but the fact it has all the jobs makes it shrug its large national shoulders .

Ahhh Cannibalism, with a bit of peppered press hate thrown in ...So UK ...

Don't get us wrong we applaud volunteers trying to make things better in Healthcare but the slip and slide of Govt's is not going to stop and in the great seas of acid and greasy social compromise , volunteers will simply be used up, and in terms of LINks evolving to HealthWatch we are not so sure the Local Authorities are the best place to hand over the HealthWatch budgets to , since they are both service providers and now the likely money keepers over the HealthWatch volunteers who may monitor them ... It appears the LA's will performance review too the very people monitoring them .. What bollox that is ..

Yeah all this right at time when the social shit of the under-performing bureau middle classes who exported very little but debt, is bailed out by everyone and the new class shifting sands has not yet resulted in a serious export led creative new basis and the net displacements of paying off the debts means the LA's have to cut services ... Oh dear, the temptation to gag monitors is going to be very high.

What it all means in HealthWatching terms is likely poor performance, or ritualistic performance , and a lack of cash we'll bet, to be given to the new HealthWatcher volunteers functions.

Accountability is a serious matter but it is not taken seriously by parts of Govt and some of their bureaucracies who see out-maneovering it, as simply part of their skill set tacitally nodded to by the politicians .

DOH quote 29th Dec 2010 :

"Healthwatch will usher in a new generation of patient champions with the resources and powers to support the needs of their local communities. I hope this report will act as a call to action for members of the public and LINks volunteers to lead the way in this reform and to become the first Healthwatch Pathfinders in England."

Watch out Volunteers for the new Local Authority master and slave trails inside HealthWatch .....

UW

Dept Of Health Announce DOH-tal Eclipse Danger Jan 4th

Cheers For The Warning HSJ Mogger

Watch Out For Dat Ol' Devil Moon

Its true they announced it !!!

LINK HERE

Interim Chief Medical Officer Warning for Partial Eclipse of the Sun Jan 4th 2011

Published date:
30 December 2010

Department of Health

People could permanently damage their eyesight and even risk blindness if they look directly at the moon passing between the sun and the earth between approximately 8.00am and 9.30am on 4 January 2011, the Government's Interim Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies warned today.

The safest way to watch the eclipse is on the television or live webcasts on the internet. Observing the eclipse directly through a telescope, binoculars or camera is not safe under any circumstances. In addition, sunglasses, and photographic film are also wholly inadequate and should not be used to view the eclipse. Only specially designed solar filters (bearing appropriate CE mark*) can be used to safely view the eclipse directly.

Actually at UserWatch we are speculating that the all powerful DOH Sun Department has deliberately arranged the DOH-tal eclipse as a way of saying they are still in charge of the Universe etc ....

Gawd its like being alive inside a giant Blue Peter show with a good little audience and the Queen and her Corgis pictured over the Christmas Ghost of Val Singleton (We go way way back here )

UW

Local Authority HealthWatch Hawks Worry LINks

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Arts By ADR

HSJ Mogger keeps his head down whilst the Local Authority unleashed HealthWatch hawk attack swoops - what can we make of it all Mr Lansley , Little Weed and Bill and Ben ?

Simply put there is a growing suspicion that far from locality power really taking off in health in terms of lay people volunteering and watching what happens and whether patients get a good deal the weakened Local Involvement Networks (LINks) (weakened initially by Labour) will fall victim to Local Authority hawkishness and dominion . Watch out for the influence of Social Care arena's in the UK for they give rise to many green skinned mutant staff who fell into radioactive management pools ..

We hear the true conversations amongst UK health activists and that's the worry being voiced. Contamination by Local Authority . The strange paradox a-wing though is, why is it that UK activists are so conformist and wait for a lead from others ..... Its not rocket science to watch and ask for information and raise concerns with parts of the public, and others interested in getting a good deal for patients - so why the strange icing up of democratic soul in health activism that we have been hearing about ?

Is there a Healthberg in the UK waiting to melt and flush activities all around ? . When will democracy thaw?

UW

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Ice Sculptured The Art Of NHS Freezing Pay

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Toon by Art De Rivers Dec 2010

The Rivers art lot of multiple cheekonalities have been at it again .... It appears on the icy horizon that new ice sculptures have been crafted and the NHS slave staffies are in wobble and slip mode as the whip winds of frozen pay (in return for no compulsory redundancies) get closer and closer ..

See : Nursing Times Article

How will it affect Service Users ? Longer waiting times , concealed "waiting lists" and anything to look efficient while misery increases ..

Now maybe the Bankers need ckuffinwell burning or at least nitrogen-freezing with being chilled out on all bonuses for years ......

Still , take a good look at what we did nationally for 30 years - denuded export capacity , gave way to middle class illusions of admin work for all , or pushing supermarket trolleys. We social engineered social engineers of everyone who socially engineered everyone else - supported head-ucation head-ucation - head-ucation and became UK-unreal and made ckuf all for others to purchase that would earn our way in the world .

Germany in the EU actually preserved its industrial base though while we, riddled with old hate for the mucky busted up basic dog (now welfare) classes, start to cannibalise their disabled futures .....

Who should get back to export led real-work ? The middle classes and their expanded Blair aspirers .

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Slowly The HealthWatch Axe Falls On LINks

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STARRING HSJ MOGGER

Local Authority Viking Raiders Raise The HealthWatch Axe

Some Local Involvement Networks (LINks) in the UK have evolved to do some partly useful monitoring of patient services while others have danced about and posed daintily .....Okay Daintily is what many have done with pinky sugars on too . Sugar coated monitoring has occurred and it only means too much of the NHS service has waltzed about with shitty knickers on which were not bum wiped ....Maybe HealthWatch will have bigger magnifying glasses - LINKs telescopes appears to have been quite weak and too distantly positioned .....

Daintily is useful though, for sneaky L.A. Vikings who realise a quick swipe here and there means disposing of muscle and putting onto a sharpened stick the scalp and talking heads that might be left over ... Beware the L.A. vikings they are a-sailing and want a ritualistic life made from lappy and lippy dancing ... 1066 is sort of back and we are in for a yawning change .

UW

HSJ Mogger on Moggabout In The Letterland Deserts

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Cheek Practice by Art De Rivers

Yeah it figures .... Health Watch is just code for the reverse ... Luckily Mogger is on the trail of Inside Outery and used to know RD Llaing's cat too named "De-mystification x 10".......

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Mental Health GP Consortia Response Vehicle In Hanging Bone Desert

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Have you got the picture ? Okay who is the bone ?

Come on admit it ..... !

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Tears On The Fire Bird - The Plight Of The Phoenix Day Centre

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Protest and Witness Poetries





By Silvis Rivers Birmingham UK .

QUOTE FROM ITS ALL ABOUT THE PROPHETS

" The mental health charities Like MIND and Rethink and Together with their media class of Time to Change and others have sold out on legal rights based Patient Choice of recovery treatments and condition management. Instead they with the NHS Primary Care Trust Commsissioners (Some of them ex-NIMHE-ites) and DOH have "shaped the market" (a term in common currency with PCT's) towards themselves as the "3rd" Sector and their paid Kapo Users - who tend toward over-control of others "

PatientGuard - UserWatch

The Plight Of The Phoenix - From ashes to ashes ? The Day Centre

Chilean Miner Dog Solidarity With UK MH Users Need For Patient Choice

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Dept Of Health Takes Giant Step On Mental Health Patient Choice UK

Mental Health 13 Years Of User Illusions - What Did You Do?

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Mental Health Arts The Pope's Spider And Oh-Jesus The Butterfly

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CLICK HERE FOR THE:
SENSITIVE PRACTICE GUIDE
FOR ADULTS/PROFESSIONALS
REGARDING LONG TERM EFFECTS
OF CHILD ABUSE POST TRAUMA

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Mental Health PathQuake Hits Sainsbury Centre For Mental Health

Sainsbury Centre For Mental Health
PathQuakes Over The Highcroft Hill

Oh dear , Purple Bunny and the NHS-Betics above have discovered a terrible Sainsbury Centre For Mental Health Pathquake over the hill .......Oh dear ... Strangely enough this was discovered at the same time as the Commons Public Account Committee noted that the Prime Providers of : "Pathways To Work" (strongly influenced by SCMH and Dr Bob Grove who worked for SCMH ) had pretty much blown £760 Million and actually done worse than the Jobcentres !! .

See 13th Sept 2010 Report From the Independent

Mental Health Users for whom Pathways To Work was also designed, were hardly helped at all and often "parked" . Why ? Because most were not fit enough anyway and demanded a lot of support that was often impractical in an economy that simply does not fit to magical thinking but certainly creates a lot of socially unsupported sinking ..

Many Mental Health Users were caught inside Labours 10 years of ideology paradoxes . There was no legal Patient Choice mechanisms added to special training help at an in-reach level. In other words training was instead "mainstreamed" (and unsuitable) rather than piloted in special ways inside the NHS contexts to help long term vulnerability . Who for instance could now learn how to operate digital skills online or offline since Trusts dumbed down on everything and overcontrolled everything or pushed it out via "social inclusion" ethos ... Gone was safe sanctuary, and the concept of aided growth inside a mental health community of vulnerability ....Oh apart from User-involvement which partly spawned a divisive class of elites that often sold their fellows out ...

SCMH and others just pushed anti-asylum ethos and pro "social inclusion" ethos in a real world struggling to create real work for many others who were fitter anyway ...

Therefore in mental health, economic context, and suitability for adaptation to real work was ignored by the planners and thinkers and NHS civil servants . Savings though were searched for in Day Services . They still are being targeted across the country and in Birmingham so we hear (tell us more) . The "elephant in the room" were the paradoxes of left wing and prayer over real care .. The paradoxes of no real work , no inreach training where it counts - inside the mental health community where personal growth might have been more possible to adapt people into launch capability - but of course Labour made sure no legal rights of Patient Choice existed either .... Users were bureau-job-fodder.

From the INDY :

" A flagship £760m programme to reduce the number of people on incapacity benefits only had "limited effect" and was not well implemented says a critical report published today.

The Pathways to Work programme contracted work to private providers who "seriously underperformed" and had lower success rates than Jobcentre Plus, the Commons Public Accounts Committee found. Between 2005 and 2009 the number of people on incapacity benefits reduced by just 125,000 and the committee said it could not be clear how many of these were due to the Pathways project."

Birmingham & Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust Where Is Your PD User Network ?

Where is the Community Personality Disorder User Network ?

While Staff Meet Up At A Nice Hotel ?

Got any defensive answers for this BSMHFT ? Come on - you all placed a CPDS service in the wrong area in the North of Birmingham UK . Didn't you ? What a waste of time and money ...

From what we hear, we wonder if it was designed to get minimum coverage , uptake and promotion to end up with the low numbers of uptakes that has made you lot self justifiably drag it off somewhere else . What a lousy deal this is for its so called mission statement to support people with long term issues of reverberating child abuse post trauma etc .

The Staff who were employed to create the User Network did what exactly ? What outreach pamphlets ? Outreach Groups ? Where ? Anyone know ? Everyone knows now your CPDS service before it barely started is planned to move off . Make it available flexibly and re-state it will create support groups for people in pain over their child abused history. Don't re-hive it off into an other unsuitable area for politically correct reasons where it did few people any good ..

Meanwhile your staff are off to a nice lunch at a nice hotel in Stafford with a minimum of PD Users in attendance and too often mainly those with network cream up their asses because in fact they should be protesting for a proper service in Birmingham instead of looking for NHS self-advantaging User-jobs..
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Mental Health Community Personality Disorder Service Birmingham Under Threat ?

UserWatch is aware from several Birmingham Service Users that all is not well with the Community Personality Disorder Services in the North of the city .

Our understanding is the newly designed (post Main House) CPDS stationed itself at a Day Centre known as the Soho Hopkins Day Centre near Handsworth - itself possibly scheduled for some kind of service re-design that may even involve partial closure .

Our information about the CPDS is it was supposed to provide a Tier 1 - 2 Day Service programme with a mixture of group-type therapy and activities . We are not sure how many Service Users took this up. Rumours suggest it was a small number put off by the location . We are certainly aware of criticisms of where this service was located in Soho Road near Handsworth . Soho Road represents an inner city area with a tough reputation and the question is was it the right place to station a CPD service that dealt with vulnerable people (males and females) with child abuse issues and sensitivities ? After all the CPDS acknowledged it had to deal with those issues in the people it was supposed to help .

We hear concerns too have arisen over what is happening with the User and Carer CPDS network . Apparently both these types of networks were supposed to exist contractually and the question is whether the Primary Care Trust that set these re-designed services up has had any time to performance manage the Service Level Delivery written out contractually to cover what the "networks" were supposed to achieve .. We think they've achieved very little indeed . That is what is being said to us !

The word is the CPDS has retreated for a time to its (as Service Users say) "Coffee and Bicuits Headquarters" in the North of the City which is near the Erdington Forensic Ardenleigh Centre . Its also rumoured it will not be staying there but probably retracting into some part of the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust - southwards .. Its the usual trend according to some Users ..

Mental Health User Apartheid ? One Rachel Fits All?

Illustration and poem courtesy of
Silvis Up The Pill of Hillvis Rivers

Jack Said :

There's a being
In the needle lune
Up there in the heart sky
God of prick
Satan cold science
Lacking Buddha's eye

I heard from the media today
How an ex-patient-psychologist wants everyone
Back to work
And I saw the muffle shuffle of local patients
That she implies are trained to shirk ..

Anal snakes now writhe
Tongues and languages curl
And the media shits on weakness
And the hate-show speeds its whirl ....

New Labour's UK mental health policies are still dragging about and waiting for the Coalition to power them up again . Mental Health Day Centres across the UK will be further targeted with new hot house schemes and Third Sector partners trying to socially engineer the long term mentally unwell into training and recovery and other types of choiceless mono-culture supply-side bollox which do not fit needs . For all the talk of modernisation in the UK we only ended up with a User elite selling everyone else out and promoting their own groups as the rest of everyone else . What do you think ?

Was there a solution ? Yeah .. Legal Patient Choice of recovery and condition management post crisis ..

We see the UK Guardian spider-writer Lady O-hero interviewed someone with new ideas who we hear was some kind of (service) "User",  now a NHS psychologist, speaks out against things like therapy dependence and yet implies dependency on meds is fine and work is implied as the main aim of "recovery" ... Right - gotcha. The vision they propose is "theirs though" and a mass projection of that ..? Yeah, how very individualized, but truthfully applicable to only  some people like that person wouldn't you think?  Some people do need support (dependency) for a very long time . The need of sanctuary is not a moral sin or necessarily a treatment failure.

What the UK Guardian never railed against consistently was the lack of legal Patient Choice in mental health (post crisis) and thus we are left with no equality of effect with the general population who can choose a consultant and secondary care provider. It was for instance , eminently possible to create patient choice mechanisms in Personality Disorders and post-crisis management which could have led to more recovery choices and initially inside the talking-emotionally supporting therapies ..But the Guardian looked the other way ..The law was set in Jan 2009 against Patient Choice in mental health . It still has not changed . Meanwhile under Labour the expansion of non-productive middle classes grew . So much for real productive expansions in the export trades like manufacturing .. (currently specialist manufacturting in the UK generates £ 300 Billion)

There is still not enough therapies for social damages in the community - we are hearing of real lives and real demand from people who have lost others, lost networks - lost babies - lost face in ethnic communities - never had parents - raped in care - sent mad by the system and more .. And Lady O-hero goes Guardian-ing away .. Guardian over what really , narrowness and limited top down social engineering approaches ..?

Forget people , lets make equations of "we imply we know best" eh and make it look like we are liberal and intelligent rather than right-wing and post Victorian ..

What a 19th century UK work-arse approach all this sad recovery anti sanctuary stuff in mental health care still is,  and we at UserWatch expect meds and SSRI's Prozac and Seroxat and Effexors and hills of pills to be suddenly health service popular again. The UK has the second biggest defence budget in the world an expanded and productivity-lacking middle class, and a hopeless massive class of people left in the wake of global development .

Positive depression is mental health reality of realistic vision ... Lets deal with an expanded overpaid middle class first please and the overpaid corporate bankers too and create sanctuary and individualised plans for life at the mental health care ends ..

Pattern Jack's Dental Mental Health And The Way He Coped

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Poem By Silvis Rivers

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Mental Health Arts : Jerry's Art And His Wings

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Video By Silvis Rivers

Salute To Jerry

Jerry is real enough and the UserWatchers amongst us know plenty like him . There's a bravery and pathos about some Schitzophrenics and the damaged lives they lead . The positive side of Jerry is his art and the way he bounces through life on it . A Day Centre man who has often lived through his internal trials of suicidal thoughts and someone who cannot care for his own life properly but through his damages he still lives on painting and drawing , with his thick black lines always containing him and his arts ..

Salute to you Jerry ....
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